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The Animators

Kayla Rae Whitaker

‘The Animators crackles with intelligence; Whitaker’s remarkable ear for dialogue reads as if Aaron Sorkin wrote an episode of Girls. She expertly captures the dynamic that exists between women when they’re alone with each other, when performative parts of femininity dissolve.’

Sian Cain, The Guardian

‘As fresh and unique as it is relatable … Charting the friendship of Sharon and Mel, who become an award-winning animation duo, it weaves in nostalgic elements while engrossing you in their thicker-than-water bond. Funny and moving, it’ll stay with you long after the book is back on the shelf.’ BOOK OF THE MONTH

Elle Australia

‘Suffused with humour, tragedy, and deep insights about art and friendship, this lively novel will make you wish Mel and Sharon's films existed off the page.’

Who Weekly

‘Female friendship has rarely been described so expertly than in this buzzy tale of two pals working on an animated film, the success of which drives a wedge between them.’

Marie Claire

‘An engrossing, exuberant ride through all the territories of love — familial, romantic, sexual, love of friends, and, perhaps above all, white-hot passion for the art you were born to make ... I wish I’d written The Animators.’

Emma Donoghue, author of Room and The Wonder

Elle

‘[An] outstanding debut … Whitaker skillfully charts the creative process, its lulls and sudden rushes of perfect inspiration. And in the relationship between Mel and Sharon, she has created something wonderful and exceptional: a rich, deep, and emotionally true connection that will certainly steal the hearts of readers.’

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

‘An exquisite portrait of a life-defining partnership … [The Animators] creeps up on you and then swallows you whole.’

Kirkus (starred review)

‘A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth. That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply, deeply funny is a testament to Whitaker’s formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page and Sharon and Mel will stay with me for a very long time.’

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

‘Every artist must come from somewhere; this is something you try to outrun, even as home fuels the creative engine. The Animators is a novel about a pair of cartoonists, but it’s also about the complexity of creative friendship, about balance and jealousy, growing into yourself and living with your talent and trying to actually, impossibly get along in this cracked and unjust world. The result is unapologetic and raucous and compulsively readable; it is potato-chip-friendly and deeply, generously wise.’

Charles Bock, author of Alice & Oliver

‘The Animators is a heartbreakingly beautiful, sharply funny, arrestingly unforgettable novel about love and genius, the powerful obsessiveness of artistic creation, and the equally powerful undertow of the past. Kayla Rae Whitaker writes like her head is on fire.’

Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man

‘The Animators is about trying to make art, find love and keep sane amongst the chaos of everyday life … Whitaker’s heroes have that cartoon quality of being more brightly coloured and clearly drawn than reality yet so human as to make them utterly absorbing. It hurts when they get hit and you soar when they succeed — more than anything else, you just want to spend more time with them.’

Ross McIndoe, The Skinny

‘The Animators is a story of female friendship, but one with honesty and bite. Sharon and Mel’s creative partnership defines their relationship as much as their gender and the story is never clouded with sentimentality.’

Emerald Street

‘There’s something exciting about The Animators… it’s the confidence of this pacey, passionate novel which really makes you feel that you might be witnessing the dawn of a brilliant career … there is insight in Whitaker’s portrayal of that endlessly complex thing, the simultaneously intense and fragile female friendship.’

Jane Graham, The Big Issue

‘I never stopped being surprised by The Animators. Not just by the beautifully and organically engineered twists and turns of its plot, but by its sensitive tracing of the ebbs and flows of the friendship and creative partnership at its heart. Sharon and Mel – the animators of the title – are as brilliantly drawn as two of their own creations, and I felt powerfully invested in them all the way through. If A Little Life made you cry, this is the novel for you.’

Simon, Foyles Bookshop

‘The more you read, the deeper you go; gutsy and intense; Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel is exceptionally good.’

Auckland Herald

‘This bright debut from Kayla Rae Whitaker reworks the familiar buddy novel into a story of two young women united by ambition, artistic talent, and enterprise … A vivid, intensely rendered portrait.’ PICK OF THE WEEK

The Saturday Age

From age eighteen on, I had a partner, a kindred spirit. I had a friend. Someone bound and determined to keep me from the worst in myself.

At a private East Coast college, two young women meet in art class. Sharon, ambitious but lacking confidence, arrives from rural Kentucky. Mel, brash and wildly gifted, brings her own brand of hellfire from the backwaters of Florida. Both outsiders, Sharon and Mel become fervent friends, bonding over their love of classic cartoons, their dysfunctional working-class families, and — above all — their craft: drawing. Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.

A decade later, Sharon and Mel are an award-winning animation duo, living and working in Brooklyn, and poised on the edge of even greater success after the release of their first full-length feature. But with this success comes self-doubt, and cracks in their relationship start to form. When unexpected tragedy strikes, long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.

Funny and heartbreaking by turn, The Animators is a dazzling story of female friendship, the cost of a creative life, and the secrets that can undo us.

‘The Animators crackles with intelligence; Whitaker’s remarkable ear for dialogue reads as if Aaron Sorkin wrote an episode of Girls. She expertly captures the dynamic that exists between women when they’re alone with each other, when performative parts of femininity dissolve.’

Sian Cain, The Guardian

‘As fresh and unique as it is relatable … Charting the friendship of Sharon and Mel, who become an award-winning animation duo, it weaves in nostalgic elements while engrossing you in their thicker-than-water bond. Funny and moving, it’ll stay with you long after the book is back on the shelf.’ BOOK OF THE MONTH

Elle Australia

‘Suffused with humour, tragedy, and deep insights about art and friendship, this lively novel will make you wish Mel and Sharon's films existed off the page.’

Who Weekly

‘Female friendship has rarely been described so expertly than in this buzzy tale of two pals working on an animated film, the success of which drives a wedge between them.’

Marie Claire

‘An engrossing, exuberant ride through all the territories of love — familial, romantic, sexual, love of friends, and, perhaps above all, white-hot passion for the art you were born to make ... I wish I’d written The Animators.’

Emma Donoghue, author of Room and The Wonder

Elle

‘[An] outstanding debut … Whitaker skillfully charts the creative process, its lulls and sudden rushes of perfect inspiration. And in the relationship between Mel and Sharon, she has created something wonderful and exceptional: a rich, deep, and emotionally true connection that will certainly steal the hearts of readers.’

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

‘An exquisite portrait of a life-defining partnership … [The Animators] creeps up on you and then swallows you whole.’

Kirkus (starred review)

‘A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth. That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply, deeply funny is a testament to Whitaker’s formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page and Sharon and Mel will stay with me for a very long time.’

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

‘Every artist must come from somewhere; this is something you try to outrun, even as home fuels the creative engine. The Animators is a novel about a pair of cartoonists, but it’s also about the complexity of creative friendship, about balance and jealousy, growing into yourself and living with your talent and trying to actually, impossibly get along in this cracked and unjust world. The result is unapologetic and raucous and compulsively readable; it is potato-chip-friendly and deeply, generously wise.’

Charles Bock, author of Alice & Oliver

‘The Animators is a heartbreakingly beautiful, sharply funny, arrestingly unforgettable novel about love and genius, the powerful obsessiveness of artistic creation, and the equally powerful undertow of the past. Kayla Rae Whitaker writes like her head is on fire.’

Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man

‘The Animators is about trying to make art, find love and keep sane amongst the chaos of everyday life … Whitaker’s heroes have that cartoon quality of being more brightly coloured and clearly drawn than reality yet so human as to make them utterly absorbing. It hurts when they get hit and you soar when they succeed — more than anything else, you just want to spend more time with them.’

Ross McIndoe, The Skinny

‘The Animators is a story of female friendship, but one with honesty and bite. Sharon and Mel’s creative partnership defines their relationship as much as their gender and the story is never clouded with sentimentality.’

Emerald Street

‘There’s something exciting about The Animators… it’s the confidence of this pacey, passionate novel which really makes you feel that you might be witnessing the dawn of a brilliant career … there is insight in Whitaker’s portrayal of that endlessly complex thing, the simultaneously intense and fragile female friendship.’

Jane Graham, The Big Issue

‘I never stopped being surprised by The Animators. Not just by the beautifully and organically engineered twists and turns of its plot, but by its sensitive tracing of the ebbs and flows of the friendship and creative partnership at its heart. Sharon and Mel – the animators of the title – are as brilliantly drawn as two of their own creations, and I felt powerfully invested in them all the way through. If A Little Life made you cry, this is the novel for you.’

Simon, Foyles Bookshop

‘The more you read, the deeper you go; gutsy and intense; Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel is exceptionally good.’

Auckland Herald

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AWARDS

2018 Australian Book Design Awards, Best Designed Literary Fiction Cover - Long-listed2017 Best Debut Goodreads Author - Short-listed2017 Best Jacket/Cover, British Book Design and Production Awards - Winner

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AUTHOR

Kayla Rae Whitaker

Kayla Rae Whitaker was born and raised in Kentucky. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and of New York University’s MFA program, which she attended as a Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholar. She lives in Louisville. The Animators is her first novel.